Witte and Guchkov's polemic has been zealously taken up by both *Rech'* and *Russkiye Vedomosti* for purposes of electoral agitation. The character of the polemic is clearly evident from the following tirade in *Rech'*:

"How often the gentlemen Octobrists under Guchkov's leadership, to please the authorities, turned out to be colleagues and fellow-thinkers of Mr. Durnovo! How often, with their gaze fixed upon the authorities, they turned their backs to public opinion!"

This is said in connection with the fact that Witte in October–November 1905 held consultations about forming a ministry with Messrs. Urusov, Trubetskoy, Guchkov, and M. Stakovich, the latter three of whom resolutely refused to accept Durnovo's candidacy for the post of Minister of Internal Affairs.

In reproaching the Octobrists, the gentlemen Kadets display, however, a most astonishing forgetfulness regarding their own past. "The Octobrists turned out to be colleagues and fellow-thinkers of Durnovo." This is true. And this undoubtedly proves that it would be ridiculous to speak of any democratism on the part of the Octobrists. But the Octobrists make no pretense to democratism. The Kadets, on the other hand, call themselves "Constitutional Democrats." But are these "democrats," for instance in the person of Urusov, who defended Durnovo's candidacy at the consultations with Witte, not "colleagues and fellow-thinkers of Durnovo"? In both of the first Dumas, did the Kadets as a party not turn out to be "with their gaze fixed upon the authorities and their backs to public opinion"?

One cannot forget or distort well-known facts. Recall the history of the local land committees in the First Duma. The Kadets were against them precisely "to please the authorities." The Kadets on this—one of the most important political questions of the era of the First Duma—undoubtedly "fixed their gaze upon the authorities" and "turned their backs to public opinion." For the Laborites and worker deputies, who represented 9/10 of Russia's population, were then in favor of local land committees. Dozens of times on other questions, the same alignment of parties was observed in both the First and Second Dumas.

It is difficult to imagine how the Kadets could contest these facts. Can one really claim that they did not diverge from the Laborites and worker deputies in both of the first Dumas, that they did not stand hand in hand with the Heydens, Octobrists, and the authorities? That the Laborites and worker deputies did not represent the vast majority of the population in consequence of the electoral system? Or will our "democrats" call "public opinion" the opinion of the "educated" (from the standpoint of official diplomas) "society," rather than the opinion of the majority of the population?

If one evaluates historically the period when Stolypin was Premier, that is, the five-year period of 1906–1911, it is impossible to deny that neither the Octobrists nor the Kadets were democrats. And since it is only the Kadets who lay claim to this title, it is precisely here that the self-deception of the Kadets and their deception of "public opinion," the opinion of the masses, especially the opinion of the workers and peasants, is most palpable and most harmful.

We do not wish to say, of course, that the Octobrists and Kadets are "one reactionary mass," that the Octobrists are no more liberal than the Kadets. We wish to say to them that liberalism is one thing and democracy is another. It is natural for liberals to consider the opinion of the bourgeoisie as "public opinion," rather than the opinion of peasants and workers. A democrat cannot take this point of view and, whatever illusions he may sometimes entertain regarding the interests and aspirations of the masses, a democrat believes in the masses, in the action of the masses, in the legitimacy of the moods of the masses, in the expediency of the methods of struggle of the masses.

It is necessary to remind those who make such abuse of the name democrat of this distinction between liberalism and democracy all the more insistently. Elections in all bourgeois countries serve bourgeois parties as a means of advertising. For the working class, elections and electoral struggle ought to serve the purposes of political education, of clarifying the actual nature of the parties. Political parties cannot be judged by their names, declarations, or programs, but must be judged by their deeds.

But the polemic between Witte and Guchkov, which touched upon the question of the beginning of Stolypin's ministerial career (Guchkov testifies, incidentally, that no one among the "public figures" objected to Stolypin's candidacy in the autumn of 1905), raises yet other, far more important and interesting questions.

The first time Stolypin's candidacy for the post of Minister of Internal Affairs was put forward (in the autumn of 1905), it was put forward at a consultation between Witte and representatives of the liberal bourgeoisie. Even in the epoch of the First Duma, Stolypin, as Minister of Internal Affairs, "twice through Kryzhanovskii proposed to Muromtsev to discuss the possibility of a Kadet ministry," as the newspaper *Rech'* writes in an editorial of September 6th, adding cautiously: "There are indications" that Stolypin acted in this manner. It is sufficient to recall that previously the Kadets got off with silence or abuse in response to such "indications." Now they themselves cite these indications, apparently thereby confirming their authenticity.

Let us proceed further. After the dissolution of the First Duma, when Stolypin became Premier, direct offers were made to Heyden, L'vov, M. Stakovich to enter the ministry. After the failure of this "combination,"—"during the first inter-Duma period, Stolypin established close political relations with Guchkov," and these relations continued, as is known, until 1911.

What then do we see in the upshot? Stolypin's candidacy for the post of minister is discussed with representatives of the bourgeoisie, and throughout his entire ministerial career, from 1906 to 1911, Stolypin makes "offers" to one representative of the bourgeoisie after another, establishing or attempting to establish political relations first with the Kadets, then with the Renovationists,[139] and finally with the Octobrists. First Stolypin, as a candidate for minister, is "offered" to the "public figures," that is, to the leaders of the bourgeoisie, and then Stolypin, already as a minister, throughout his entire career, makes "offers" to the Muromtsevs, Heydens, Guchkovs. Stolypin ends his career (it is known that Stolypin's resignation was already predetermined) when the entire circle of all the various parties and shades of the bourgeoisie to whom "offers" could be made becomes exhausted.

The conclusion following from these facts is clear. If the Kadets and Octobrists are now quarreling among themselves as to which of them held themselves more servilely in negotiations about ministers or with ministers—Urusov or Guchkov, Muromtsev or Heyden, Milyukov or Stakovich, and so on and so forth—then such quarrels are petty and serve only to distract the public's attention from a serious political question. And this serious question clearly comes down to understanding the conditions and significance of that special epoch in the history of the Russian state system, when ministers were forced to make systematic "offers" to the leaders of the bourgeoisie, when ministers could find at least some common ground with these leaders, common ground for conducting and renewing negotiations. It is not important who conducted themselves worse—Karp or Sidor—what is important is, first, that the old landowning class could no longer command without making "offers" to the leaders of the bourgeoisie; what is important, second, is that common ground was found for negotiations between the wild landowner and the bourgeois, and that ground was counter-revolutionary sentiment.

Stolypin is not simply a minister of landowners who lived through 1905; rather, he is at the same time a minister of the epoch of counter-revolutionary moods in the bourgeoisie, to whom the landowners had to make offers and could make them owing to their common hostility to "the fifth year." These moods of the bourgeoisie—if we speak only of the Kadets, the most left of the "liberal" parties—found expression both in the preaching of *Vekhi*, which heaped filth upon democracy and the movement of the masses, and in Milyukov's "London" slogan, and in the numerous lampada-like speeches of Karaulov, and in the speech on the agrarian question of Berezovskii the elder, and so on and so forth.

It is precisely this aspect of the matter that all our liberals, the entire liberal press, including the liberal labor politicians, are too inclined to forget. And yet it is precisely this aspect that is the most important, explaining to us the historical distinction between those conditions under which landowners became governors and ministers in the nineteenth or at the beginning of the twentieth century and after 1905. Arguing with Guchkov, the Kadet *Rech'* writes (*Rech'*, September 30th): "Russian society remembers well the formulary of Octobrist-ism."

Oh yes! Liberal society remembers well the petty squabbles of "its own people," Urusovs and Milyukovs with Heydens, L'vovs, Guchkovs. But Russian democracy in general—and worker democracy in particular—remembers well the "formulary" of the entire liberal bourgeoisie, including the Kadets; it remembers well that the great upheaval of 1905 forced the landowners and landowner bureaucracy to seek support from the bourgeoisie, and this bourgeoisie used its position in a most remarkably worthy fashion. It fully agreed with the landowners that local land committees were unnecessary and harmful; it differed from them on an extraordinarily important, truly principled question: Durnovo or Stolypin!

*Zvezda* No. 26, October 23, 1911. Signed: V. I.

Printed according to the text of the newspaper *Zvezda*